"The Heart of the Metal" and More...

The Heart of the Metal, February 21, 2014...

Last night was the first Troubled Waters event of the year and they kicked off their 2014 round of shows with a bang.

Michelin Social Club, Bridgewater, NS... It's only a small venue that has less than a 100 person capacity, but it's large enough to host an awesome lineup of bands that rock the place! 

There were four bands in the lineup last night, two of which I had seen before, one that I have wanted to see live for a while, and one that I hadn't seen or heard of at all until Troubled Waters released last night's full lineup.

I've seen Dirt Stache before. This power duo may only be a guitar and drums, but they have the energy of a five member band, and they are very talented guys. The fact they are goofy in nature only adds to their appeal in my opinion. I laughed more at their descriptions of what each song was about than one would do at another live show, and really enjoyed watching them strut their stuff.

Flesh Cauldron is one I have wanted to see for a while but wasn't lucky enough to until last night. They are great! Their material borderlines on death metal and although they didn't have a live drummer last night, they did quite well with an "electronic" one that was programmed with all of the drums for their set.

My favorite local band, Whom Gods Destroy, was up third. As always, the guys KICKED IT and kept their promise of keeping "Sea of Tears" in their shorter set list. (I'm going to let them live - FOR NOW! Muwahahahahahaha....) I do have videos of their performance, but it's ultra dark and you can't see much... Plus I had a lot of interruptions, thanks to a couple of people that refused to listen to proper etiquette for any live show....I did get a couple of photos and I did share them on my personal profile and author's page, so if anyone wants to check them out, the link to my FB author's page is in the links area to the left of my blog posts.

Vicious was the one band in last night's lineup I wasn't familiar with. I had never met any of the guys, seen them live, or even heard any of their music before last night. That said, they now have another fan in this aspiring author! Their energy and showmanship are reminiscent of bands like Iron Maiden, Metallica and Def Leppard, to name only a few. I was blown away by their talent and performance, and I can see why they're popular in the Nova Scotian music circuit. I would not be surprised to see this group win a Juno, ECMA, or even a Grammy in the future, they are that good!

I would like to thank all of the bands in last night's lineup for their outstanding performances, and a special thank you to Troubled Waters for putting on events like The Heart of the Metal, and the Michelin Social Club for hosting the event.

For anyone who likes metal music, I highly recommend you check out all of the bands featured last night...

Dirt Stache Official Facebook Fan Page

Flesh Cauldron Official Facebook Fan Page

Whom Gods Destroy Official Fan Page

Vicious (band) Official Facebook Fan Page

And lastly...

Troubled Waters Official Facebook Page

Whom Gods Destroy at "The Heart of the Metal", February 21, 2014. 

And on a side note... 

If you're at a live show, whether it's a large venue like the Metro Centre or a tiny venue like the Bridgewater Michelin Social Club, PLEASE respect the bands and other patrons! Pushing your way onto the "stage" area to get into the bands' "personal" space, touching their equipment at all, taking the microphones and screaming into them even though you're not a member of any bands, and a lot of other things are just NOT COOL AT ALL.

If you can't behave at something like this, please do the rest of us a favor and STAY THE HELL HOME!

Sheesh. *SIGH*

I'm Out of My Cotton Picking Mind..... (Writing Update!)

A couple of weeks ago, I was trying to get Ten off the ground when an idea for another story hit me. Of course, I wrote it down into my ideas for future stories file and thought I'd get to it sometime after I had finished Ten's first draft.

Wrong!

The darn idea would not leave me alone, no matter what I tried. I would try to think of ideas for Ten and something for the new idea kept popping into my brain! I'd be doing dishes, talking with Peapod about general stuff, and whammo, a scene for that new idea would pop into my head. This has been happening for a couple of weeks, ever since I got the new idea.

This past week, I finally gave in and set up a file for what is now nicknamed "Eleven".

Yes, you read that right. I have another WIP on the go. *SIGH*

The original idea for it was ultra complicated, and it had more than one possible ending, so I streamlined it to make it simpler. Yes, it was another one of the ultra complicated plots with a zillion twists and turns that I seem to love writing. That said, after I trimmed "the fat" into yet another possible future idea, it's still a complicated story, but less so than something like the Legacies series.

So far, an ideas file, character profiles, a rough timeline, and an "Over 18" scene ideas file has been started, as well as the main file itself... And I have a few scenes written up that will be spliced in shortly, after I get past that *censored!* speed bump I hit in the main file, it happens after the initial "blast" and everyone's reaction to it.

At the moment, that's two WIPs I have on the go and I do hope I can get into one of them soon. I haven't had a story that was in the brain 24/7 since I finished draft one of "Legacies: Family Portraits" (book 2) last October, and I'm really feeling it. I'm grumpy and it's really showing sometimes. My apologies to my family and friends, and thank you for putting up with me when I'm like this....

I hope either Ten or Eleven turn out to be my next completed manuscript. I'm going nuts here.....

And the cleanup of the Legacies series continues. No Regrets (Book 1) now has a lot of areas that are color coded highlights so I know where there are passive scenes, where I was too wordy and after a while, I'll be going through to see where I've been repetitive, etc. If I can do it, I'd like to send it off to a beta reader from one of my writing forums by the end of the year so I can get some extra help in finishing its revamp.

Have a great weekend everyone! I'll be back with another update on the writing, hopefully soon!